


Jumpin' Jack Flash

by hangdog



Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Animal Transformation, Friendship, Gen, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-07
Updated: 2018-07-07
Packaged: 2019-06-06 22:23:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15204734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hangdog/pseuds/hangdog
Summary: Scout turns into a bunny and learns valuable lessons about friendship.(Scout/Sniper, if you squint.)





	Jumpin' Jack Flash

Scout was crazy about Snacky Cakes. They were maybe number three on his list of things he loved. First was Ma, duh, and number two was definitely bashing skulls, and then he loved girls…okay, so maybe Snacky Cakes was number four, but that’s still top five. Wait. Maybe he loved girls more than bashing skulls. Was it weird if girls didn’t come before everything else? Okay, Ma, girls, bashing skulls, Snacky Cakes. That made Snacky Cakes a solid number four on the roster. What was number five? Shit, he forgot baseball! Okay, now he had to figure out if baseball was three, four, or five.

“Scout.”

He would take baseball over Snacky Cakes, but not over bashing skulls. Maybe that made Snacky Cakes number five.

“Scout, we’re here. Get out.”

Scout focused and looked around. Yep, there was the gas station! He could have given Sniper a big, sloppy kiss for doing him this favor, if he didn’t have girls in his top five.

“Thanks!” He jumped out of the open passenger window. “Just wait here. It’ll take me two minutes, tops. Aw, man, you don’t even know how much I’m craving those Snacky Cakes right now, Sniper.”

“Just hurry up.” Sniper pulled his hat down over his eyes and slumped down behind the wheel like he was going to take the shortest nap ever. He probably would. Sniper slept all the time, all over the place, in all kinds of weird positions. Scout swore he saw him asleep standing up, once. “Remember, you owe me. Too bloody early for this…”

“Yeah, sure, whatever!” Scout jogged into the convenience store. Convenient was right. They had the Bonk! right next to the Snacky Cakes, like they set it all up just for him. They probably did, ‘cause he was definitely their coolest and most awesome customer. The place was kind of crowded for 9 AM on a Sunday, though, and he had to shove past some people to get to his aisle.

“Oh, shit,” he said out loud. Some old lady gave him a dirty look, but he ignored her. There was only one pack of Snacky Cakes left on the shelf! What kind of shitty convenience store was this where they didn’t restock every week? Scout did  _his_ freakin’ job, and that was all about killing or being killed! How hard was it to put some freakin’ snacks on a freakin’ shelf?

As soon as he snatched them up, a creepy old hand went for the same pack. Scout jumped out of reach. “Back off! These are mine.”

“Curses!” Scout couldn’t believe it. Merasmus was standing there in his dress, holding the Sunday paper and a cup of coffee, like he wasn’t some glowing-eyed wizard with a beat-up cow skull on his head. Or was it a sheep skull? It was stupid, whatever it was. “Unhand those delicacies or face my wrath!”

“No way!” Scout guarded the Snacky Cakes like a football. “I been thinkin’ about these since yesterday. I call dibs!”

“I have been thinking about Snacky Cakes for  _ten thousand years,”_ Merasmus shouted. He was doing that trick where he threw his voice and made it echo all over the place. The people in the store started huddling up in fear, but Scout wasn’t impressed. He handled this crap every Halloween. “Beware ye of wousing a wizard’s wath—rousing a rizzard’s—be wary of  _making a wizard angry!”_

“Jeez, Merasmus, maybe you oughtta finish your coffee before you start making threats, here.” Scout gave him a big, shit-eating grin and peeled open the wrapper.

“DO NOT DARE!” Merasmus’s eyes started glowing like crazy. Scout braced for some kind of magical bullshit. “CONSUME THOSE SNACKY CAKES AND BE DAMNED!”

He wasn’t about to let some old dude in a dress order him around. How many times had he kicked this guy’s ass? Scout stared right into Merasmus’s freaky radioactive eyes, licked both Snacky Cakes to stake his claim like he used to do with his brothers, and crammed one into his mouth. He chewed with his mouth open and moaned like it was the best thing he’d ever tasted. It kind of was, after he spent all night thinking about it.

Merasmus flipped out. “DEFIANT CUR! GLUTTONOUS WRETCH!” Scout almost choked, it was so funny. He snatched a Bonk! out of the cooler, washed down the first cake, and chowed on the next one.

Merasmus pointed at him with one of his gross, spidery fingers. “LET YOUR FORM MATCH YOUR VERMINOUS SOUL! LAGOMORPHUS BRATTICUS!”

Scout was still laughing, but he started to get a weird feeling. The Snacky Cake was too big for his mouth all of a sudden. He tried to take another gulp of Bonk!, but his fingers lost their grip on the can, and it bounced off his foot. “What the…”

Then, the floor rushed towards him like he was falling. He had to drop the Snacky Cake and throw his hands out to catch himself, and he screamed when he saw his fingers shrinking to little nubs. They itched, too. His whole body itched worse than lice.

Merasmus let out one of his witchy laughs. He was growing huge now, taller than Scout had ever seen him. “What did you do?” Scout tried to ask, but there was something wrong with his mouth. His front teeth were big, like way bigger than normal, and his tongue was thick and clumsy, and his lips didn’t move like he wanted them to.

A tent collapsed over his head. Scout flailed around in the dark. Did Merasmus drop a magic circus on him or something? This sucked! He finally found a hole in the tent and squeezed out.

He was next to the ground. Like, right next to it. The convenience store shelves were like skyscrapers. Merasmus was twenty stories high, and his crazy laugh was so loud that it hurt Scout’s ears. Scout looked around for something to deck him with, and saw a pile of clothes behind him. Weird. It looked like his clothes.

Scout gulped.

It  _was_ his clothes. They were gigantic. No, wait. He was really, really small. Scout tried to back up and look at them, but he couldn’t stand up on his feet for some reason. His legs felt way too long, and his body rocked back and forth like a seesaw every time he shifted his weight around. He looked down at himself, and saw little white paws, and a puff of white chest hair, and long white whiskers on both sides of his little pink nose.

Merasmus showboated it up. “Hop along—to your DOOM!”

No freakin’ way. Scout wasn’t really a rabbit. This had to be a bad dream. He looked up at Merasmus, prepared to make some kind of trade, but the old creep was really enjoying his win for once. He shot some magic bolts at Scout, and Scout jumped out of the way on reflex. Merasmus followed him, shooting bolts at his feet, making him run. Scout had to get out of the store before he was toast.

Sniper! If he got in the van, he could get back to the base. But when he reached the door, he was too small to push it open, even when he dug his back feet into the rubber mat and tried as hard as he could.

Scout looked out of the glass and hammered the panel with his weird padded hand. It barely made any noise, and he couldn’t see Sniper in the van from this low on the floor, anyway.

A shadow fell over him. He saw Merasmus lift his hand in the reflection on the glass. Real quick, Scout asked Jesus to forgive him for killing all those people, even though most of them had it coming.

He didn’t die. Instead, he saw himself walk out of the store. Whoah! He was with two bombshell babes! They were hanging on his arms, feeling up his muscles, laughing at some hilarious joke he made. It was a pretty accurate picture of his everyday life, only it wasn’t really him.

“Hey, Sniper,” the fake Scout yelled, “Head back without me, okay? Me an’ Candi an’ Bridget got some  _urgent_ business to discuss.”

The girls giggled, and the fake Scout strutted down the street. It was awesome. Scout was just pissed that he wasn’t actually there.

Sniper was probably pissed, too. The van’s engine started up, and Sniper peeled out of the parking lot without saying anything.

Now Scout was really up shit creek. Merasmus kept cackling at him like it was the funniest thing he ever saw.

“Yeah, keep laughin’, ya freak,” Scout tried to say, but his stupid rabbit mouth made it come out all wrong, and Merasmus just laughed louder.

“Be you humbled by your form, wretch?”

Scout did his best to put up his stubby little middle finger. It didn’t really work, and it hurt like a motherfucker, but Merasmus looked like he got the message, because he stopped laughing.

“Then let the desert be the death of you!” The old wizard did some kind of dance with his arms, and a wind blew the door open and tumbled Scout on his ass outside. He tried to get back in, but the door slammed shut behind him, and Merasmus turned around and went for the donuts. Scout heard him asking, “Have ye any jelly filled? NO? Then where be the bear claws?”

Oh man, oh man, oh man. Scout hopped in a circle outside the convenience store, freaking out. Maybe he should wait for Merasmus to come out and see if he’d fix him. No, that was stupid. Merasmus would probably kill him.

The old creep wanted him to go out and starve to death in the desert like a chump, but Scout had a better idea. He didn’t need Merasmus’s help. If he got back in Respawn range and got someone to blow his head off, he’d come back handsome as ever. Then he’d find Merasmus and kick his ass!

With no time to lose, Scout took off across the road. He made it about twenty feet before some asshole’s car almost splattered him on the pavement. That was when he learned how far he could jump. He took off like a rocket and sailed across the whole highway before he hit the dirt on the other side. He had to admit, it was pretty cool. He covered a ton of distance with one big hop. He felt like he was flying every time he left the ground. He wondered if he going farther than he could when he had his real body, or if it just felt like more because he was so small. Either way, he kind of liked it, even if being turned into a shitty little rabbit was the worst thing that ever happened to him.

Running with those crazy back legs felt good, too. He started sprinting as fast as his new legs could go, and he motored along next to the highway, breaking the sound barrier like it was nothing. He must have covered four or five miles before he looked around to see where he was. He was making really good time. If he kept it up, he’d beat his record for running back from town.

As soon as he took off again, he noticed a shadow on the ground. That was kind of nice, because it was getting pretty hot, except there were no trees out by the highway and there were usually no clouds. Even weirder, the shadow kept following him. It looked like it was getting bigger, too.

Scout slowed down and looked around. He didn’t see anything, except for some bird up in the sky.

The bird let out a screech and came at him.

Scout zigged off to the side just in time. The bird swooped so close he felt the wind on his fur, and then it wheeled around and came back at him from the front with its claws open. It was  _huge,_ big enough to grab him and carry him off. Scout zagged, and the bird almost got him—its claws clicked right next to his ear. It circled just overhead, screaming like a demon, and folded its wings for a third drive.

Fuck that. Scout wasn’t gonna let some bird eat him for lunch. He hunkered down, focusing all his strength in his back legs, and let the bird come to him. He waited for the right moment; when he could see the yellows of its eyes and the scales on its feet, he launched himself head first at its stupid bird chest.

Bonk! The bird never saw it coming. Scout jumped right over its claws and hit its chest so hard that it crumpled to the ground, all dazed and confused. Scout landed on top of it and slammed both of his feet into its wing.

For a giant killer bird, its bones were total crap. He felt a pop and a twist. The bird screeched in pain and tried to bite him. Scout was way too fast, naturally, and he jumped off just in time. The bird flopped around in a circle with its wing out at the wrong angle.

“Hahaha!” Scout’s laugh sounded really weird and squeaky, but it didn’t matter, because he fucking won! He settled for dancing around the bird in a circle and hopping out of reach when it tried to go for him. What a stupid asshole! He kicked sand in its face.

Partway through his victory lap, he smelled something gross. It smelled like someone pissed on a dumpster on a hot day. He wrinkled up his nose. The bird started thrashing around like crazy, like it was trying to fly away.

Scout turned around, and came face to face with a giant freakin’ coyote’s giant freakin’ teeth. He jumped about five hundred feet in the air, narrowly avoiding its snapping jaws, and took off like a bullet.

He ran at top speed for a few seconds before he realized that there was nothing behind him. He looked back to where the coyote hunched over the bird, chowing down like it was a big bowl of living dog food, while the bird wiggled around and flapped its broken wing. Damn, nature was scary.

Scout didn’t stop running after that, no matter what he smelled or heard. If he died out here, he probably wouldn’t come back, and no one would ever know what happened to him. Plus, even if word did get around, like if Merasmus started running his mouth to the guys, he didn’t want Ma to know that he died as a rabbit. He wanted her to remember him as the war hero that he really was.

He started to worry on the way back to base, though. What if he got someone to kill him, and then he came back as a rabbit all over again? Scout didn’t know how Respawn worked. Engineer was the only one who understood that science crap, and his teleporters didn’t even work with bread. Something stupid was bound to happen if Scout just started messing around.

Okay, so he had to find Engineer. Then, he had to get the message across somehow. Then, he had to hope and pray that Engineer didn’t tell anybody what happened, or the guys would never let him live it down. Man, this was so freakin’ embarrassing. How come Merasmus never turned anyone else into an animal? Why didn’t he just take one of Scout’s eyes like took Demo’s? Then Scout could wear a cool patch and tell girls about how he lost his eye saving orphans from bears.

By the time Scout reached the last landmark outside the base, not only did he feel way too sorry for himself, but he was also exhausted and thirsty. He never felt this tired after a run. When he looked up at the sun, he realized that he cut his record in half by pushing his rabbit body to the absolute limit. It was pretty cool, except he felt like he was going to die.

He hopped around the rocky landmark and saw Sniper’s camper van. Perfect. The van had a water tank and a spigot outside for a hose. Scout looked down at his little paws. It would be hard to turn that handle, but it wasn’t impossible.

His ears were so good now that he picked up Sniper’s voice from far away. It sounded like he was talking to someone.

“…last time I get up at the crack of dawn for that brat. I should tell him, isn’t there a bloody truck on the base? Get someone else to drive you for once, you demanding little mongrel.”

That asshole was talking about him! Okay, maybe Scout woke Sniper up a little early that morning, but he was craving Snacky Cakes all night. Plus, Sniper drove everyone else into town all the time, and the gas station wasn’t even that far.  _And_ Scout said he’d owe him a favor.

“Next time, I’ll gut him like a trout.”

Yikes. Scout crept in closer. He listened for a second voice, but Sniper just kept yakking.

“I should hit him with some Jarate. ‘Accidentally.’ That’d keep him off my back.”

He was talking to himself, wasn’t he? Man, they made them batshit crazy in Australia. Sniper was an all-around sicko.

“Then again…”

Sniper went quiet, just when Scout reached the spigot. Scout stood up on his hind legs and tried to get a grip on the circular handle. He struggled forever with the stupid thing before he heard Sniper say something else.

“He’s probably the easiest to talk to. It’s easy. He never shuts up. Actually makes me think we’re friends. It would be a shame if he got scared of me. Just started getting to know these blokes.”

Aw, jeez. Sniper was a real piece of work. It almost sounded like he was lonely. Maybe he was, if he was hunkered out here in his van all the time. Scout just thought he hated being around everybody. Still, Sniper drove him into town every time he asked. He bitched and moaned about it, sure, but he did it.

No sooner did Scout have this revelation than the spigot suddenly gave under his paws. Water spewed out in a delicious flood. Scout had trouble drinking around his giant new teeth, and he almost drowned when he stood under the stream, but it was worth it. He was so thirsty his head hurt. The water in the van’s tank was cool and clear.

“What the hell?” Over the rushing water, Scout heard Sniper stand up inside the van. Before he had time to react, the door flew open. A giant cloud of skunky pot smoke came rushing out. Yes! Scout fucking knew it! Sniper was a reefer!

He and Sniper locked eyes. Sniper stared at him with a weird expression that was scary, but familiar. Scout wasn’t sure how he recognized it. Then, he remembered: the coyote looked at him exactly the same way, like he was a cheeseburger on legs.

“Hello, little morsel,” Sniper growled. His arm moved very slowly. Scout heard a metallic scraping noise. Shit! Fuck! He took off. Sniper’s knife cut into the mud, right where Scout was, a split quarter of a freaking second ago.

Scout bolted towards the base. He knew how to give Sniper the slip. He dodged from side to side, jumping and twirling, as unpredictably as possible. It was a good tactic, because he heard an arrow whistle through the air and thunk into the sand. That crazy bushfucker was standing outside his van and shooting arrows at him! How did he even get his bow ready so fast?

Scout took a flying leap through a hole in the fence. An arrow thunked into the other side. Man, Sniper was getting slow. Scout would have to rib him about it if he survived this bullshit.

Scout thought he could take a second to catch his breath, but then he was nearly pulverized by a falling boulder. He jumped out of the way just in time, and spun around.

Gross! It was one of Soldier’s severed heads. Scout looked up at the fence. He was unlucky enough to jump through right under the place where Soldier hung his deranged war trophies. Sniper’s arrow had knocked one loose from a post. From this far down, the heads were ten times scarier than ever, and the rotting smell would knock him out if he stayed much longer. The one that almost crushed him lay in the dirt with its jaw dangling open and its swollen tongue flopping out. Scout had a chance to look under the helmet. He wished he hadn’t. Soldier’s face was on that thing! What the  _fuck?_ What was Soldier doing with copies of his own head?

Maybe it was just because he weighed three pounds and couldn’t defend himself, but Scout’s crazy teammates had never freaked him out as much as they did now. Good thing Soldier wasn’t around. Who knew what that screwball would do to him when he was like this? He had to find Engineer before anyone else saw him.

He took an indirect route. If he made a beeline for Engineer’s workshop, he would probably run into someone else. He snuck around better than Spy ever could, keeping track of any nook and cranny in case he had to escape another threat. Was this what rabbits felt like all the time? It was the worst.

Scout had gone maybe twenty feet before he smelled smoke on the breeze. Tobacco, and not Sniper’s wacky kind. He backed into a tall patch of scrub grass and kept an eye out until he found the source. Spy was walking around outside like he owned the place, the jerk. Scout definitely wasn’t afraid of him, but he had the weird feeling that if he came out of the grass, Spy would take one look at the random white rabbit and know exactly what was up. He definitely wouldn’t help. He would probably think that it was funnier to leave Scout as a useless rat forever.

He waited, and waited, but Spy’s version of a walk was taking ten steps in one direction, leaning against a wall, and chain smoking. Scout could tell that he wouldn’t budge for a while.

He had to find another way out. Scout moved towards the back of the grass. He figured that he could sneak away before Spy noticed him rustling around.

He was wrong. Trust a creep to spot him creeping. Spy made a “hrm” noise and started to walk towards him. Crap. Fuck it. Anyone could outrun Spy. Scout would be outta there before Spy got a good look at him.

Spy coughed in surprise when Scout burst outta the bushes like a miniature explosion. Spy doubled over, hacking up a lung. His fault for smoking so much. Scout heard him gasping and wheezing the whole time Scout was running away. It sounded so bad that Scout started to worry about the douchebag. Naw, that wasn’t it. He was just stopping and looking back so he could watch as Spy struggled to breathe. It was pretty fun to watch him turn purple. Medic had a word for that—feeling happy about someone else’s pain. Sch…sh…

Shit! Gloves snatched him up. Scout scratched and bit, but he couldn’t puncture the rubber suit that surrounded him.

He heard a rattling wheeze overhead that intensified as big arms lifted him into the air. His heart beat so fast that it felt like it was humming. No, no, no,  _no._ Anyone but the freak. Please, God, not Pyro.

Pyro crushed Scout against his chest. Scout was fighting just to breathe now. When he went limp, Pyro let up on the pressure a little bit. Scout tried to squeeze out of his grip, but Pyro just crushed him again. Scout tried to scream for help. Nothing came out but a pathetic squeak. Oh, God, no. He was gonna be barbecued. Pyro was gonna roast him alive.

Pyro carried him over to Spy. The sneak tried to stop coughing as soon as he realized someone else was there. It didn’t work so well. Pyro hammered Spy on the back, which just made him cough harder. Scout tried to take advantage of Pyro’s one-armed hold on him and slip loose, but Pyro tucked Scout under his arm and held Scout in place with biceps of steel. Pyro’s muscles were almost as big as Scout’s.

“Stop! Stop! I am fine!” Spy flung Pyro’s hand away and gasped for air. “I had something in my throat.” He changed the subject. “Who is your new friend?”

Pyro grabbed Scout in both hands and showed him off to Spy. Scout kicked like crazy, but he couldn’t get loose.

Thanks to the giant freaking antennas he had for ears, Scout picked up what Pyro said through the filter. He couldn’t tell much about Pyro’s actual voice, but he understood the distorted words that hummed through his mask. “ _I found him. Balloonicorn says that he’s Scout, but I’m going to call him Mr. Fluffernutter.”_ Scout was so shocked that he stopped kicking. He couldn’t have heard that right.

“Yes, yes,” Spy answered, pretending to listen to Pyro. He leaned in to look at Scout. “Perhaps it escaped from Medic’s lab. You should take it back to him.”

Pyro hugged Scout protectively. “ _No! Medic will put lipstick on him, and he’ll die, like on the news!”_

His body language must have told Spy everything. The creep laughed. “Well, then don’t let him see it.”

Pyro bobbled his head up and down and ran off with Scout in his arms. He wasn’t crushing him so much anymore, and Scout started to relax. After all, Pyro was always hanging around Engineer on the job. Maybe this wasn’t a death sentence.

Pyro carried Scout inside the base. Just like Scout, Pyro snuck around like he was in a movie. He hugged the walls and peeked around corners. “ _Don’t worry, Mr. Fluffernutter,”_ Pyro wheezed. “ _I won’t let Medic put lipstick on you._ ” Scout must have been going as crazy as everyone else, because he actually trusted Pyro to protect him.

It took them way longer than it should have, but eventually, they got to the one place that Scout never thought he’d be: Pyro’s room. The door was just like everyone else’s in the hall, except for the smoke damage around the edges, and the crayon drawing of a smiley flame taped to the outside.

Pyro had crayons! Scout could find some way to write a message. As Pyro opened the door, he tried to look around for one.

He got distracted pretty much immediately. Pyro’s room was a total surprise. Scout expected a dingy, soot-covered hellhole, the kind of place you’d expect to find in a serial killer’s basement where the bodies got burned. He was prepared to see bones and skulls and broken fire axes everywhere.

Instead, it was kind of like…what the freakin’ crap? It was like a little girl’s room. Pyro had a thing for pink. There were pink sheets, pink stickers on his footlocker, and pink stuffed animals. Pretty much everything was charred around the edges, just like Scout expected, but it wasn’t so burned that he couldn’t tell how girly everything was.

Was Pyro a  _girl?_

No way. He was too strong, too crazy, and too freaky to be a girl. Scout had seen Pyro toss a hundred-pound sledgehammer around like it was nothing. Scout couldn’t even pick up Pyro’s hammer without pulling something in his back. Sure, Pyro carried a purse sometimes, and he was kind of pear-shaped, and he never showered with anyone else around, but…but…no way! There was no way that a  _girl_ was that much stronger than Scout!

Pyro placed Scout gently on the bed and patted him with his glove. Her glove? His glove. “ _Are you hungry, Mr. Fluffernutter?”_

Well, actually, yeah. Aside from the Snacky Cakes, Scout hadn’t eaten all day, and he’d been running his ass off. He tried to express his hunger with big, sad eyes.

Pyro clapped his hands. “ _I have just the thing!”_ He opened his footlocker. Scout watched Pyro toss some crap over his shoulder: an empty can of kerosene, a purple diary with a flimsy lock, a huge box of matches, a wad of flowery scarves, a pack of crayons…

Bingo. Scout jumped off the bed and found the crayons on the floor. Pyro, still digging in the footlocker, didn’t notice as Scout scratched open the box. He sank his big front teeth into the wax tip of a green crayon, braced his paw on the cardboard, and pulled it out. His teeth were sharper than he thought. Wax shavings went down his throat, and he gagged and coughed.

“ _Mr. Fluffernutter, are you choking?”_ Pyro swooped down and snatched him up in the air. Scout watched the crayons disappear across the hundred-mile distance. “ _Silly bunny! You can’t eat those. Here, have some beef jerky._ ”

Pyro didn’t have to ask Scout twice. He peeled open a pack of jerky, and Scout tried to find a way to eat it without breaking his teeth. His mouth was totally rearranged. There was a huge gap between his front and back teeth. When he tried to bite the jerky like normal, it just slid around between his gums. He figured out that he had to use his paws, shove it all the way back in his mouth, and bite down hard. He shook his head from side to side until a scrap came loose. It tasted saltier and bitterer than it should have. He swallowed it anyway.

Pyro giggled.  _“You are the cutest thing ever._ ” It was so weird that he could understand Pyro. Before, if Scout had to guess, he’d probably say that Pyro was mumbling, Burn them all, burn them all, over and over.

Pyro cooed over him like a girl, which he definitely wasn’t, the whole time Scout ate the jerky. He thought he would feel better with a full stomach. Instead, he got really sick all of a sudden.

He remembered something. When was a kid, Ma tried to get him to eat his vegetables. He’d always say, “I don’t eat rabbit food!”

Rabbits ate carrots and lettuce and stuff, not beef jerky. No wonder he felt like he was gonna throw up. What the hell was wrong with Pyro, feeding him that crap? He barfed it up all over Pyro’s suit just to get even.

“ _Oh, no!”_ Pyro held Scout at arm’s length. “ _Are you sick? Poor little thing! What am I going to do?”_ Pyro paced around the room in circles, which only made Scout throw up again. “ _I can’t take you to Medic. This is bad, Mr. Fluffernutter._ ”

No shit, you freakin’ loony toon. Scout looked back at the crayons. If Pyro would just put him down, already, he could hop over there and scribble out an SOS.

He wasn’t that lucky. Pyro pulled something out from under the bed. It was a battered cardboard box full of half-burned comic books. Hey, was that an original  _Jungle Brawls_ #50? Pyro dumped out the comics and replaced them with his blanket. He put Scout in the makeshift bed and closed the box around him, trapping him in the dark.

Scout tried to jump out, but Pyro slid the box under the bed. The bedsprings pinned the cardboard flaps shut over Scout’s head.

“ _Wait here, Mr. Fluffernutter. I’ll find help._ ”

Scout slammed his paws into the box flaps and bounced off the blanket until he felt sick again. He tried to move the box by throwing himself against the side, but the top corners caught on the bedsprings, and it wouldn’t budge.

He was about to give up and sulk when he noticed light coming in through the cracks in the box corners. The cardboard was in pretty bad shape. Scratching it didn’t work, though. He didn’t have enough power in his front claws. He turned around and tried kicking it. Each kick resulted in a tiny rip in the side. At this rate, it would take all day to bust himself loose.

Then, Scout got the bright idea to use his monster front teeth. It was perfect. They were made for chewing their way out of cardboard prisons. In no time at all, he tore open a hole big enough to squeeze through.

He hopped over to the crayons. The green one was almost out of the box. His chewing practice with the jerky told him how to pick it up without getting shavings down his throat. He grabbed it in his mouth and dragged it across the floor to one of the scattered pieces of paper that Pyro had lying around.

Like a little kid, Pyro drew pictures all the time. Scout was surprised that Pyro could be around paper without setting it on fire. This one was attached to a piece of tape that must have gotten loose from the wall. As Scout approached, he saw the full drawing: it was the whole team, holding hands around a huge fire that was spitting out rainbows and butterflies. He recognized himself as a stick figure in a baseball hat. Compared to the others, he was tiny. A talk bubble, like in comics, came out of his mouth. Illegible chicken scratch words filled the entire bubble and spilled over the edges. He was the only one who got a talk bubble. If he wasn’t so pissed about being the smallest guy in the picture, it would have made him feel special.

He stared at the drawing for a minute. It was almost like Pyro thought that everyone liked him. Didn’t he get the hint that they were all afraid of him? Sure, he hung around when they ate together, and he chimed in to conversations, but no one could understand him. They all just humored him so that he wouldn’t burn them to death in their sleep.

There were some other drawings piled up on the floor. Scout dug through them until he found another one of himself. Pyro drew Scout running through a field of flowers. Pyro and some kind of fat pink unicorn were both hot on his heels. Pyro was holding a giant lollipop and blowing bubbles everywhere. All three of them were smiling their freaking heads off. Pyro went into more detail in this one, too. He gave Scout his baseball socks and his dog tags and everything, but he drew him in a blue shirt.

Wait a minute. This wasn’t him—it was the BLU Scout. Pyro was trying to kill him. Wasn’t he? It didn’t look like that from the drawing. If Scout didn’t know any better, he’d say that Pyro and the BLU Scout were friends. He was beginning to get the real picture. Pyro was nuts, all right, but not in the way Scout always thought.

He was creeped out enough for the rest of his life. Back to the plan. He flipped that drawing over to the blank side, picked up the crayon with his teeth, and used his paws to keep it steady while he dragged the tip over the paper. It took a lot of adjustment just to maintain enough pressure to make a mark with the wax. He slid back and forth and struggled to write SCOUT.

It was  _impossible._ He couldn’t even see what he was doing. It was taking him forever just to fill the paper with pointless lines. The curves of the S and the C in his name were so freaking difficult to make. He tried turning them into boxy corners, but he kept slipping every time he changed direction with the crayon, and then he had to stop and line the tip back up with the last mark. It wasn’t long before there were so many wandering lines that he didn’t have room to write anymore.

He was so frustrated that he didn’t hear the footsteps outside until they were right by the door. It swung open and slammed into the wall, and he dropped the crayon when he leapt out of the way. He prayed that Engineer would walk into the room.

“You came to the right enlisted man,” said Soldier. “I’ve been training war animals for twenty years. I have an entire troop of battle-ready raccoons.”

Seriously? Scout scampered back under the bed. No way he was letting Soldier anywhere near him when he was like this. Soldier strangled him at least three times a week. The headhunting psycho probably killed little animals for fun.

“ _Don’t worry, Mr. Fluffernutter. Balloonicorn said that Soldier will know what to do,”_ Pyro promised as he knelt down by the bed and reached for Scout. Scout was too fast. He dodged behind the cardboard box and feinted from side to side. Pyro shoved the box against the wall and trapped Scout in the corner with his hands, and Scout bit him as hard as he could.

He forgot that Pyro’s gloves were made of ultra-thick rubber. While he was hanging on to Pyro’s finger like a bulldog, Pyro dragged him out into the open and grabbed him around the middle. Again, Pyro squeezed him like he wanted Scout’s guts to pop out of his mouth.

“What are you doing?” boomed Soldier. Scout tried to cover his ears with his paws. Soldier’s voice was so loud. “You can’t hold a bunny that way!”

Scout braced for Soldier to pick him up by the throat like he always did, but when Pyro handed him over, Soldier held him as gently as a baby. Scout could have jumped out of Soldier’s arms if he wanted to. He was so surprised, though, that he sat there and stared up at Soldier, while the nutjob actually petted him.

“You have to gain an animal’s trust if you intend to conscript it for the war effort,” Soldier told Pyro. “Training begins with patience.”

Pyro clasped his hands.  _“Wow, Soldier. You sure know a lot about animals._ ”

“That’s right!” Soldier answered proudly. Scout wondered if Soldier actually understood Pyro. “We will create the most dangerous war rabbit the enemy has ever seen! The element of surprise is in our corner!”

“ _Mr. Fluffernutter can’t fight. He’s sick.”_ Pyro tugged Soldier’s sleeve and pointed to the puke Scout left on his suit. He pulled the beef jerky out of his pocket. “ _He won’t finish his food.”_

“Rabbit rations are different stuff, Pyro.” Soldier screwed up his face. He looked like he was about to take a huge dump, but Scout could tell from his angle below Soldier’s helmet that Soldier was actually thinking very hard. “I know!” said Soldier. “Heavy has lettuce in his sandwiches!”

Pyro danced from foot to foot, clapping. “ _Let’s give the bunny a sandwich!”_

Soldier carried Scout towards the kitchen, explaining the concept of vegetables to Pyro on the way. Scout didn’t feel great about hitching a ride in Soldier’s arms, but after his multiple close calls with death, he decided to stick with the only two people who had a vested interest in keeping their new bunny friend alive.

Heavy was hanging out in the kitchen. Of course he was. The fat bastard was reading a thick book through a pair of tiny rectangular glasses. Heavy took a bite out of his sandwich and chewed slowly, ignoring everyone as hard as he could.

“Hello, Heavy!” Soldier marched over to the fridge. “We are commandeering a sandwich for the new recruit!”

Heavy didn’t listen, which was why he was so surprised when Soldier and Pyro started ripping into a sandwich on the table in front of him. He squinted, took off his Ben Franklin glasses, and frowned at Scout. “Why do you have little bunny?”

“I’m training a murderous war rabbit!” said Soldier.

“ _His name is Mr. Fluffernutter,”_ said Pyro.

Scout saw the exact moment when Heavy decided that he didn’t want to know. Heavy rolled his eyes up to the ceiling, put his glasses back on, and went back to his dusty old book. Scout was just grateful that the big dweeb didn’t try and stop him from eating the lettuce and tomatoes out of the sandwich. The olive wasn’t bad, either. Scout nibbled on the cheese, but it left a film on his tongue that made him gag.

“ _Aww,_ ” Pyro cooed, “ _look at his cute widdle teeth.”_

“He will use those teeth to conquer America’s greatest enemy: the hippie.” Soldier stroked his hand across Scout’s back. Scout jumped at first, but Soldier kept petting him, and Scout could either run away or eat. “Save your strength, Private Fluffernutter.” When Scout finished disemboweling the sandwich, Soldier scooped him up again. “To the firing range!”

Medic burst into the kitchen. “Heavy! I need you in surgery.”

“That is fine.” Heavy didn’t move, except to turn a page.

Medic stomped his boot like an impatient toddler and looked around the room. Scout’s heart skipped a beat when Medic saw him. “Where did you _dummkopfs_ find a nice specimen like that?”

Soldier and Pyro formed a protective barrier in front of Scout. “Hands off, Fritz! He’s an American rabbit!”

Scout was grateful to the guys for protecting him, but he could see sick ideas percolating in Medic’s head. The doctor tried to walk around Soldier and Pyro. “The rats did not work,” Medic thought out loud, “but maybe a different species…”

Nope. Scout jumped off the table and shot out through the open door. His reaction time was so much faster than anyone else’s that he got a head start way down the hall before he heard the guys start to chase him. Soldier and Medic were yelling at each other and Pyro was wailing like a fire truck.

Scout dodged and dipped through the base until he couldn’t hear them anymore. He doubled back towards Engineer’s lab. While Medic’s lab connected to the infirmary and Respawn, Engineer had a whole sublevel of the basement where he kept his inventions in progress. Scout never thought it was fair that Engineer had a whole floor to himself when everyone else just got one lousy bunk, but now it came in handy, because no one thought to look for a rabbit down there.

Scout hopped up and down four times in front of the keypad on the door, hitting the next number into the code with every jump. The door unlocked, and Scout muscled it open with his shoulder and hopped down the stairs into Engineer’s basement.

The big room was like an oversized garage from the future, full of giant, half-finished projects partially covered in burlap tarps. Engineer had a nest in the center of the action. He made it comfortable with a cooler and a little beach chair. How could someone be so smart, so productive, and so lazy at the same time?

Scout halted on the stairs in surprise when he saw Demo sitting next to Engineer. They were both holding sweaty cans of beer and listening to guitar music on the radio. It looked like a party, except Demo was crying.

“After I lost Irene, I still loved her,” Engineer was saying. Aw, jeez. Engie was crying, too: just sitting there with tears rolling down his face. “Even though she’s gone, my love is still here.”

Demo sniffled and blew his nose into his shirt with a honk. Scout saw Demo cry all the time when he got super wasted at three in the morning, but there weren’t too many empty cans around him and Engie.

“Maybe that means love is the part of ourselves that’s immortal,” Engie said.

“Yer right, lad.” Demo drained his can of beer, and cracked open a new one. “I can never forget me love. Never.”

Scout seriously considered leaving and coming back later. How often did this happen? He knew Demo had some kind of problem that he drank to deal with, but he never expected Engineer to have an emotional side.

At that moment, Demo looked at the stairs. When he saw Scout, he paused, looked at his can of beer, and looked back at Scout. “Engie?” he said.

Engie wiped his nose with the back of his hand. “What’s that?”

Demo did not do a great job of hiding his fear. “Look now, lad, and tell me ye don’t see a wee rabbit coming down the stairs.” Great. Demo thought he was hallucinating.

“What in tarnation?” Engie stood up. “That  _is_ a rabbit.”

Scout began to hop towards them. It was kind of funny to see Demo scuttle away from Scout. After running away from everything in the world, Scout wanted someone to be afraid of him for a change.

“Relax, Demo.” Engie knelt down and let Scout approach him. “It’s just a lil critter.”

“I don’t like it,” said Demo. “It’s givin’ me a strange feeling.”

Engie picked Scout up and petted his back. “You scared’a bunnies?”

“It’s a cursed bunny,” said Demo. “I can sense it!”

Demo was on the right track. He probably had the most experience with magical bullshit out of all the guys. Scout should have been looking for Demo in the first place.

Except, maybe that would have been a bad idea, because Demo was picking up a sword. Demo held the Eyelander over his head in a battle stance. His eye glowed a spooky green.

“C’mon, now,” Engie said, shielding Scout in his arms. “I know yer feelin’ blue, but don’t take it out on him.”

The sword dropped out of place for a second. Demo held it in one hand and wiped his tears with the other. “I’m just so lonely,” he sobbed. “I’m sorry, bunny.” Aw,  _jeez._ Scout wondered if Demo could see Scout rolling his eyes.

As Demo sniffled, the sword began to glow. “What?” Demo muttered. He held the blade up to his head like a novelty phone and listened for a few seconds. His jaw dropped.

It turned out that the ghost inside Demo’s sword could see Scout’s spirit “tethered to the beast.” Scout imagined himself as a stupid balloon, tied to the rabbit’s body with flimsy string. When Engie and Demo tried to get Eyelander to tell them how to fix Scout, the sword said something that made Demo curse in Scottish rage and stuff it back into its scabbard.

So that was how Scout ended up in Medic’s lab, surrounded by all the guys, and staring at a dead copy of himself on a metal table. Scout had to focus extra hard on the mental image of turning back to normal, because everyone was laughing at him right now.

“Little Scout is cute bunny!” roared Heavy, slapping his knee.

Soldier was still stuck on his plan from before. “I can train you in the art of war, Bunny Scout. You could go down in history as the rabbit of freedom!”

No thanks, thought Scout, but he didn’t have time to express that, because Pyro was picking him up and cuddling him. “ _You’re much nicer like this,”_ said Pyro. “ _I wish you could be a bunny all the time.”_ Scout decided to hang out with Pyro after he got his body back. They could read Pyro’s comics.

“It was a good joke for Merasmus’s part,” said Spy, chuckling. Scout hoped he died of lung cancer. “I cannot think of a more appropriate animal.” Sniper laughed, too, but Scout felt a little less mad at him.

“It is time to begin the procedure.” Medic took Scout from Pyro’s arms and carried him towards his own body. Looking at himself from the outside was too weird, especially when it was basically a corpse. As the other guys gathered around his human body, Scout realized how small he looked next to everyone. Engineer was the only one shorter than him, and his arms were almost twice as thick as Scout’s.

Medic hooked Scout’s bunny head up to some wires and attached them to his human head at the other end. Medic pulled a lever, sparks flew, and, presto change-o! Scout was back in the people business. Science sure was easy.

Everything should have gone back to normal after that. It didn’t. Scout still felt like a rabbit all the time, nervous and on edge, too aware of how little he was compared to everyone else. It wasn’t the only change: he made nice with Pyro, who turned out to be pretty fun to hang out with when he wasn’t chopping people up with an axe. Scout saw most of the guys differently than he did before. He understood Soldier a little better now, as the well-meaning, brain-damaged freak that he was. When Scout listened to Demo and Engie, he picked up the sadness behind everything they said, even when they tried to act happy.

Scout started acting differently with Sniper, too. He didn’t just bother Sniper when he needed a ride into town. He went out to Sniper’s van all the time, checking to see if Sniper wanted someone to talk to.

Sniper told Scout to go away about four or five times before Scout caught Sniper smoking weed. When Scout busted open Sniper’s van, Sniper was too high to kick him out, and that was how they ended up sharing a joint and talking about life.

“I’ve always been small,” Sniper said, which came as a shock to Scout, because Sniper was taller than pretty much every one Scout ever met. “Compared to the other Australians, I mean. They could snap me in half, and they made sure that I knew it.”

“Assholes,” coughed Scout.

Sniper pulled his hat down over his face, but Scout could see him smiling. “Anyway, I learned that there are advantages to having different skills. I found a niche as an assassin.”

“I guess that is an important itch,” Scout agreed, not knowing what niche meant.

Sniper tried explaining it another way. “You can’t be the strongest  _and_ the fastest. You have to pick one or the other.”

“Hey, that makes sense.” That was actually the best thing Scout ever heard. His whole life had meaning now. Was it weird that he always wanted to kiss Sniper as a thank-you? “Thanks, buddy.” Scout awkwardly patted Sniper’s shoulder, and Sniper shrugged Scout’s hand off of him.

“Don’t smoke it all. I’m having a nap,” said Sniper, which Scout learned was code for Sniper being done with a conversation.

Scout hung out by Sniper’s van until he finished the joint, and then he wandered around the base, thinking about stuff. In spite of the magical mishap, Scout was still the coolest, most awesome guy in the world. He was God’s gift to girls, whether or not he was a rodent for a day. Shit, girls probably would have liked him even if he stayed a bunny. Chicks dug cute animals.

Merasmus was such a dumb fuck. He tried getting into Scout’s head, but he only made Scout prouder and more confident in his body. Scout couldn’t wait to bean the bastard with some baseballs. Maybe Halloween was coming early this year.

 


End file.
